Icelandic Noir Again

Inspector Erlendur of the Reykjavík police department is a serious and somewhat humorless man. He's divorced, his children have grown up relatively estranged from him, his ex-wife detests him, and his career hasn't gone much of anywhere. Jar City, the first of a series of crime novels about Erlendur (published 2002), is a fast-paced yet kind-of broody tale by author Arnaldur Indriðason. I enjoyed reading it despite its rather lowlife cast of characters.

The murder victim at the center of the tale is a single man who lived in a rather insalubrious basement apartment. Investigation by Erlendur and his colleagues discloses more and more unappealing and even disgusting facts about him. As one reads, one learns about a lot of dissecting rooms and morgues, a lot of forensic and other science; maybe too much for my taste. Although the end is somewhat unexpected, the whole story isn't pleasant.

Erlendur's daughter Eva Lind is also a marginal member of society. Near the beginning of the novel she shows up at his apartment, needing his help because she is pregnant and drug-addicted, and her friends are pretty awful. And in fact, Erlendur's own living habits aren't especially good either. 

At one point, he gets home after a day of interviewing a psychopath resident of a high-security prison. He enters the apartment and:

"He’d called in at a takeaway and picked up a bag of fried chicken for dinner. He threw it down on a chair and was taking off his coat when he smelled the familiar old aroma of cooking. He hadn’t smelled something being cooked in his kitchen for a very long time. Chicken like that lying on the chair was his food, hamburgers, takeaways from the greasy spoon, ready meals from the supermarket, cold boiled sheep head, tubs of curds, tasteless microwave dinners. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually cooked himself a proper meal in the kitchen. He couldn’t remember when he’d last even wanted to." (p. 116).

Erlendur has a surprise coming:

"Slowly he made his way further into the kitchen and saw something simmering in a big pot. Lifting the lid, he looked down at a particularly delicious-looking meat stew. A slick of cooking oil was floating above turnips, potatoes, cubes of meat and spices, the whole thing giving off an aroma that filled his flat with the smell of real home cooking. He stooped over the pot and inhaled the smell of boiled meat and vegetables. 

"'I needed some more veg,' Eva Lind said at the kitchen door. Erlendur hadn’t noticed her enter the flat. She was wearing his anorak and holding a bag of carrots.

"...When they sat down to eat, Eva Lind poured water into the wine glasses and Erlendur ate so much that he could barely stagger into the sitting room afterwards. He fell asleep there in his clothes and slept badly until the morning." (p. 117-118). 

So goes his domestic life. He even eats the take-away chicken some days later, after it's been sitting on the chair waiting for him. However, he does seem to come to some agreement with Eva Lind about her future and his role in it.

There's quite a bit of local color about all the lowlifes who appear in the course of the investigation. Assuming that my much-anticipated trip to Iceland isn't cancelled, I still don't think I'll be encountering anyone at all like the people in the novel, or even seeing much of the neighborhoods where they live. It's still interesting to read detective fiction, though, no matter where it takes place. 

Review © 2021 mae sander.